This invention relates to improvements in a telemicroscope such as that in the telemicroscopic apparatus previously disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,238 to D. Brandon Edwards, and that described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/134,794 to D. Brandon Edwards et al. The term "telemicroscope" applies to both telescopes and microscopes. In a preferred implementation of the telemicroscopic apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,238, a miniature telescope was mounted in a spectacle lens. With a sufficiently small telescope mounted at about the optic axis of the lens, one can obtain bilevel viewing in which a principle image and a small magnified image can be viewed without confusion.
In a preferred implementation of the telemicroscopic apparatus disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/134,794, the telemicroscopic apparatus is placed at an angle relative to the optic axis of a spectacle lens. This allows a principle image and a clear magnified image of the same object to be viewed simultaneously.
One of the problems confronting many telemicroscopes is that of glare reaching the viewer's eye due to reflection of light off the inner surfaces of the telemicroscope barrel. This is a particular problem with miniature telescopes where the inside walls are very close to the central viewing axis of the scope barrel. One attempt at relieving this problem involves covering the inner surfaces of the barrel with small fibers which absorb much of the light reaching those surfaces. This approach is presented in the above-mentioned patent application Ser. No. 07/134,794.